Ever since the Sumerian language became known for the world of the linguists,
there have been claimes and counter claimes to the view that the Sumerian
and Turkish languages are related. While some groups vehemently deny the
linguistic affinity between the two languages, others gingerly but nevertheless
positively admit the affinity of these two languages.

In the following list, a set of 200 English words, numbered from 1 to
200 and alternatively known as "200 concept group Hymes List",
and their correspondences in Sumerian and Turkish are given. Under each
selection in English, other concepts related to the selected word's meaning
are also entered. Thus in the first two colums, we have the English and
Sumerian entries and in the third colum, Turkish entries are provided.

The purpose of this study is to bring to attention those Sumerian and
Turkish words which correspond to each other and/or seemingly related to
each other in form and in meaning and at the same time to see if Turkish
can pass a given test in order to prove its kinship to the Sumerian. From
the listed words given below, there seems to be ample evidence that the
Turkish, as members of Altaic languages, have come from a root that also
included the Sumerian language. In view of the fact that the Sumerian and
Turkish have been separated from each other or from a parent language,
that is if they had a common parent in the past, for at least five thousand
years, it is surprising to see that there still are many words which correspond
to each other in both languages.

It is hoped that other workers in this field will contribute to this
list to improve its level of accuracy such that it will make the Sumerian-Turkish
relationship an unquestionably recognized one.

At this point I would like to acknowledge, with special thanks, the
contribution of Fred
Hamori who provided the 200 word concept group Hymes List.

The Sumerian being an ancient and dead language, its present day reading
has been done through the intermediary of Akkadian and other Semitic languages.
Since language is the most important part of any culture, those who did
not live the Sumerian culture that created the Sumerian language would
not be able to define exact meanings of Sumerian words no matter how efficient
readers they may be of the Sumerian cuneiform writing system. Therefore
some degree of inexactness is expected in the definition and meaning of
each Sumerian word. However, since the list given below is based on the
works of some of the eminent scholars of the field, it can be viewed as
up to date.

As for the Turkic correspondences of the Sumerian words given in the
list below, I have tried to find Turkish correspondences from archaic as
well as the living Turkic languages.

According to Dell Hymes, [Dell Hymes, "Lexikostatistics so far",
Current Antropology, pages 30-31 University of Chicago, 1960], we have
the following mathematical relationship between languages that have the
same root but separated from each other in the past:

t = log c: log r where t is the time of separation, c is the remaining
root words, r is the ratio of remaining words to original. (86 words left
after 1,000 years based on tests)

If t = 1,000 years, Nt/No = r**(1/1000) = c where Nt is the total root
words remaining after time separation t and No is the number of root words
from the root language in the list (time zero)

Thus, a language that has 47% of the root words of the following Sumerian
list can be a direct descendant of that language acording to Hymes. Please
note that this mathematical relationship by Hymes was for 100 selected
words for which reader is asked to see Fred
Hamori's home page.